


The Horse in the Pool

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Animal Abuse, Cruelty, F/M, Happy Ending, Harm to Animals, Horses, M/M, Rescue Animal, Trixie finally gets a horse of her own, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 19:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15869952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Trixie goes exploring and comes home with a new friend. A girl and her horse....





	The Horse in the Pool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



Raised in the country, Trixie doesn’t think anything of going for a walk or a bike ride when time permits.The area surrounding Belden Farms isn’t old, familiar territory like Glen Road, Post Road and the village of Sleepyside-on-Hudson, so when she can, she likes to go out and explore.

For a long time, she thinks the unpaved track across from their mailbox is someone’s driveway, but then she gets a look at an area map Mart has and realizes it’s technically a road, too. One way dead-ends into somebody else’s groves. The other way…there’s an open area with the notation BT Pik, and what looks like another road at right angles that comes out onto Range Road. Okay, so she probably won’t get lost….

BT Pik turns out to be BonTerre Pickle Company, boasting a weathered sign with a jar of pickles on it. It’s an uninspired cube of cinderblock, with a length of six-foot tall chain-link fence extending out from the Range Road side. Clearly the place has been closed for years: the asphalt in the parking lot is cracked and weedy, and the only car in sight is a rusted-out hulk to one side of the pavement.

Trixie hears a banging noise. It’s intermittent and sounds like it’s coming from the side of the building beyond the fence. There’s absolutely no wind, so it must be man-made. 

She’s learned caution over the years; Trixie is very careful as she parks her bike, as stealthy as she knows how to be as she slinks toward the corner of the building. When she slowly leans forward to peek through the fence, for a moment, she’s frozen with shock.

There’s a horse trapped inside the fencing! Its left front leg is caught inside a five-gallon bucket, and the horse strikes it against the fence from time to time. Trying to get it off? As a cry for help? The poor thing is leaning against the fence, probably too tired to stand.

Trixie races the length of the fence, then turns the corner, running toward the gates midway along the side of it.

The horse hears her footfalls and straightens up, swaying. He knows where the gate is--he stands there patiently waiting for her to open it. It has a simple U-shaped latch that most horses could open with no effort. Someone’s put a bolt through it. Not even tightened down, just enough that it can’t be opened by anything without opposable thumbs. She’s furious, but the horse takes priority.

As soon as she has it open, the horse shuffles forward and starts to nuzzle Trixie as if she’s his long-lost dam. “Good boy,” she croons.

The side of the building that’s fenced in used to be the loading dock, by the looks of it. It’s enclosed by the chain-link fencing on three sides. Another expanse of asphalt, except there are no weeds in sight, because the imprisoned horse must’ve eaten them all. Who would lock a horse up like this? A trained jumper might be able to get over a six-foot high fence, but not this guy…he’s not much over fifteen hands tall--shutting him in here was a death sentence.

First things first: Trixie bends to examine the bucket stuck on the horse’s leg. It’s grown brittle with age; somehow, the horse managed to step on it… Obviously he’s been handled--he isn’t a bit shy, and he seems to understand that she wants to help. He makes anxious noises, easy to interpret as “Be careful! Be careful!”. Finally she manages to ease it down around his cannon and persuades him to lift his foot so she can gently tug it off.

Now that she can get a good look at him, Trixie is mad all over again. She’s heard the expression “skin and bones”, but she’s never seen it face-to-face like this. Tears fill her eyes.

Mart has been heard to comment that Trixie is more apt to cry when she’s angry than when she’s sad. He’s right. At the moment, she wants to find whoever did this and lock them up in the hot sun for days and see how they like it!

There’s a tap on the wall near the loading dock, but when she goes to investigate, it’s the kind that has a little square on top--the handle has been removed. Trixie laughs shortly. Who is she kidding? This place has been closed for years, their water has probably been turned of ages ago. 

She has a bottle of water in her bike basket, she remembers. It’s something. The gelding ambles through the gate behind her, clearly not wishing to be alone or imprisoned again. That water isn’t cold, which is good--the last thing the poor beast needs is colic. It isn’t nearly _enough_ water….

Trixie pulls out her phone, dialing Mart. When her brother answers, she demands, “Are you at home?”

“No, we’re having lunch in town--”

“Damn!” She hangs up, too frustrated for politeness.

(At a cafe in Rocky Beach, Mart Belden is staring at his phone. Across the table from him, Ben asks, “Did I just hear your sister _swear_?!” When his partner nods, Ben says simply, “I think we’d better get home. Check, please!”)

“I’m really sorry,” Trixie apologizes to the horse, who’s regarding her more alertly after his drink. “The closest place I can get you water from is home, and that’s at least a mile and a half away. I’m not going to shut you back up--that would be horrible for you. I’d come back, but you wouldn’t know that. I could tie you here in the shade, except I don’t have any rope, and you still wouldn’t understand why I left you here. The only thing to do is for me to ride real slow, because I know darn well you’re going to follow me, aren’t you?”

The gelding follows her gamely. Trixie pedals so slowly that she wobbles, the sorry-looking horse keeps up the pace at a brisk walk, but she still feels guilty and worried that she’s over-taxing him. Heaven knows when he last ate anything but weeds, and that bucket probably caught rainwater the night before last. It’s easy for her to picture: The rain pelting down, a miracle to the poor, wretched horse…finding water in the bucket again, drinking what there was, and maddened by thirst, trying to get the last lingering ounces at the bottom, knocking it over. Old plastic, sitting there since whenever the place was abandoned, brittle--he’d been trying to get it back upright, maybe hoping that it would magically refill, when his hoof went through it….

Another look at her new friend supports that theory. It’s difficult to tell what color he is, because he’s so caked in dried mud and dust, but it’s streaked on his back as if the rain started to wash it off. 

It’s hard to know how long he’d been locked in…the place has been deserted for ages, and she has no idea how much traffic that road sees. It’s even farther off the beaten track then they are…probably not more than a handful of cars in a day, if that. As much as a week, if the bucket had been full to begin with. There’s the possibility he was a stray; some idiot saw him loose and thought penning him up would keep him out of trouble. But no, that bolt on the latch suggests that they know something about horses--that they specifically know _that_ horse, And she’s back to attempted murder.

“You’re such a good boy,” she coos, stopping to look both ways, although there’s not a car in sight. “We’re almost home, don’t worry….”

As Trixie leans her bike against the side of the barn, she hears a series of splashes behind her. The horse has climbed into the stock tank--it’s only two feet high--and as she watches, he tries to drink the water. There’s chlorine and god knows what else in there--Mart got it a while back for him and Ben to lounge in--probably pretending to be Roman Emperors, or something like that. 

The gelding sputters and looks at her. “Okay,” she says hastily. “Fresh H2O, coming right up.”

There are a pair of new five gallon buckets with round trays atop them acting as side-tables. She whips the tray from the nearest one. It isn’t empty; apparently it’s storing condoms and something that looks like detergent pods, but probably isn’t, unless they’ve started making detergent coconut-flavored. Trixie removes the other tray, tips the contents of the first bucket in without looking.

“Because I really don’t want to know,” she says to the horse, who’s shifting his hooves and looking almost content.

The reason the stock tank is where it is is because there’s an upright tap beside it. Trixie turns on the hose and rinses out the bucket. The horse watches her attentively.

She only fills it partway; if he drinks a lot all at once, he’ll be sick. She knows that much.

As soon as she sets it on the tray covering the other basket, the gelding dives in.

This would be a good time to wash him. Of course, Mart is liable to have little pink kittens at all the mud in his nearly-new stock tank, but it can’t be helped. It serves him right for not being around when she needed him. She knows that’s not rational, besides being awfully petty, but it would’ve been great if he’d been able to come to their rescue with a couple gallons of water, the carton of oatmeal from the pantry and a bunch of fresh-picked carrots.

Grooming tools…what do they have? A decent brush or curry-comb would help a lot. Nothing out in the barn; possibly there hasn’t ever been a horse on the place, maybe it was just cows. Wait...Trixie scurries toward the dome. She’d picked up a new scrub brush, which she hasn’t used--it’s a little rough for regular grooming, but to scour all that caked on mud, it’s perfect!

Okay, that, plus the oatmeal--almost two full canisters, yay! A salad bowl to pour it into, since she doesn’t have a nose-bag…what else? She doesn’t have any sugar cubes--that goes onto the shopping list along with more oatmeal while she’s thinking of it--but she has half a bag of Wint-O-green life savers in her room….

While she’s in there, the shiny Chevy SSR that Mart and Ben have dubbed the Silver Bullet pulls into the barnyard.

“Tell me that isn’t a horse standing in my nice, new pool,” Mart gasps.

“Daddy-o, I hate to tell you this, but Mr. Ed is definitely occupying our pool.”

“Unbelievable.” The horse merely glances in his direction when Mart steps out of the truck and says, “You! Get out of my pool!”

“Is it supposed to be that thin?” Ben wonders. Everything he knows about horses is what he’s seen in the movies, when they’re usually wearing saddles.

Mart stops his advance and looks at the filthy, bedraggled horse standing in the stock tank and sighs. “No--you’re right. He’s about as skinny as you were when you first got here.”

“And just look at me now!” Ben coos. He’s a healthy weight for his long, lean height, and his chores on the farm have built up real muscle. “Look--Trixie’s bike wasn’t there when we left--I think I know what she was so upset about.”

“Hey there,” Mart murmurs, walking up to the horse, who regards him politely. It’s been a couple years since he’s had any contact with horses, but he remembers the spot under the jaw to scratch…. The horse nuzzles his shoulder, leaving a muddy streak against Mart’s shirt, but he doesn’t care. It’ll wash out.

Ben stays a few yards back--a pony at a petting zoo stepped on his foot once, which had tempered any enthusiasm he might have otherwise had for the species.

Then the gelding’s head comes up, and they all turn to see Trixie sprinting across the lawn.

“Trixie, you got some ‘splainin’ to do,” Mart growls with mock-severity.

“Save it. I’ll wash out your precious stock tank. Just look at him!” There’s nothing playful about Trixie’s indignation.

“Okay! Hey, I know you’ve been wanting a horse--you’ve got one, I’m not going to give you a hard time--”

“Good. Then run down to Finest Kind and get a couple bales of hay--three or four, at least. And some bran. And a curry-comb and a nose-bag and a halter and--”

“Holy cow, sis! That’s going to cost--”

“Less than your stock tank!” she snarls. Ben has never seen Trixie get so worked up; he takes another step back. “And do you have _any idea_ of how many gallons of marmalade I’ve brewed in the last five months? Do you?”

“Okay, okay!” Mart hastily makes a beeline for the barn, and Baby. Going to the farm store up the road is easier than dealing with his sister’s wrath, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to haul a lot of messy hay in his pretty new (gently used) truck. Cravenly, he leaves his partner to face Trixie’s temper.

“Ben?” 

He smiles, the reflex of a rabbit hoping it can charm the hungry wolf into thinking that he’s much too cute to be dinner. 

“Please go to the produce patch and bring me back some carrots. Not the baby carrots--the big ones. Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

“Now.” He bolts.

Trixie feeds the horse a mint. He licks it from her palm and rolls it around his mouth like a connoisseur with a tot of brandy. It clicks against his teeth before he crushes down on it.

“I know I shouldn’t be feeling you sweets before dinner,” she says to him. “I guess I should start getting you cleaned up….”

By the time Ben gets back from the garden, she’s hosing off the horse, who stands there with a look of bliss on his long face. Occasionally he shifts so the spray from the hose will hit a particularly itchy spot, but he doesn’t fuss, even when Trixie begins to ply the scrub brush against his grubby hide. 

“I thought you were brown, but you’re not…you’re grey, aren’t you? Look at that,” she says, and Ben’s not sure if she’s talking to him or the horse. “If you were brown, you’d be a buckskin, with that black mane and tail and stockings. What do they call it when it’s grey…that’s dun, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter, you’re my pretty boy, aren’t you?”

Nope, she’s not talking to him--probably doesn’t even realize he’s back. “Rinse those off for me under the other faucet,” she instructs--hah! He should know by now that Trixie never misses anything!

Mart returns to discover his partner gingerly feeding carrots to the lean, grey horse while Trixie scrubs it. It’s no longer standing in the stock tank, which is, he notes glumly, the color of coffee with a lot of milk. Ben doesn’t look any too thrilled, but the half-starved horse is much too intent on crunching carrots to think of misbehaving.

As soon as he opens Baby’s tailgate, the gelding’s nostrils flare. He immediately moves toward the scent of the old hearse’s cargo.

“Block him!” Trixie hollers as he takes leave of her ministrations.

“How?” shrieks Ben. “He’s bigger than I am!”

The grey dun begins tearing mouthfuls of timothy hay out of the nearest bale. Mart, who isn’t afraid of horses, gets in front of it, yanks loose a cube from the bale. “Ben, go over to where you were before, he’ll follow you!”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ben mutters, but grabs the squared- swatch of hay and goes to stand by Trixie again. 

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Trixie tells him. “He’s really got very nice manners. He’s just awfully hungry. Mart, I’m planning to bed him down in that first big box stall. You’d better store the rest of that in the other stall, and for heaven’s sake, put a carabiner on the hasp. This boy can open a simple latch like you’d open a doorknob.”

“Okay. Here, I’ll leave another cube for him, he looks like he can use it. I also got him is own bucket, nosebag, curry-comb, finishing brush, a tube of hoof conditioner, one halter, size regular, a twelve-foot lead rope and a stall shovel.”

“You’re a good brother,” she says, grinning.

“Yeah. I’m going to pull the plug on the tank so it’ll drain, that way after you’ve tucked Crowbait in for the night, you can scrub it out.”

“Gee, and here I thought after I tucked him in, I’d cook dinner.” Trixie radiates innocence. “But since you called my beautiful horse ‘crowbait’, well, I guess you’re on your own.”

“He didn’t mean it!” Clearly, Ben has no desire for pizza or Chinese food for dinner. “You didn’t, did you, Daddy-o?” He punctuates the question with a short rabbit-punch. 

That makes Mart yelp. “No! No, I was just kidding! He, uh, has good bones.”

“That’s right.” She’s cooing to the gelding again. “And he’s not too tall, so he’ll be easy for me to mount, once he’s in shape again. I’ll need a saddle, but there’s plenty of time for that….”

Dinner is hasty but tasty, a mix of ground beef and noodles combined with a tomato-based sauce that Trixie canned herself. She inhales a bowlful and disappears again.

“You’ve got to understand,” Mart tells Ben thoughtfully, “Trixie has been exhibiting great restraint, for her. Seriously. I remember showing her around the place for the first time, and she said, ‘Oh goody, there’s a barn--I’ll have a place to keep my horse!’. She never actually had her own horse--we rode the Wheeler's horses all the time--but she’s been talking about it practically forever. So the fact that we’ve been here for going on a year-and-a-half and she’s just now getting one? I’m surprised.”

“Apparently she found him,” Ben replies. “He was shut up at some old factory she discovered while she was out exploring.”

“Oh, Lord,” Mart sighs. “Let’s hope nobody claims him or my dear sis is liable to go to jail for assault.”

“If I was a horse, I’d want you or Trixie to find me.”

“I did,” Mart reminds him, and for a little while, they rejoice in the fact. Soon Ben is on Mart’s lap, and they’re cuddling happily.

Then the door from Trixie’s room opens, and Jupe sticks his head in. “Trixie?”

“She’s out with her new boyfriend,” Mart smirks.

“She’s out at the barn with her new horse,” Ben clarifies, because Jones looks shattered at the possibility of Trixie’s defection.

“Oh, a horse! Good, I know she’s been wanting one.” He departs, smiling.

“Poor son-of-a-gun,” Mart comments at his passing. “if he thinks that horse isn’t going to be serious competition.”

Ben kisses his partner. “Nah. This is Trixie we’re talking about. She has enough love for everybody.”

Mart contemplates that, then nods. He isn’t wrong.

 

…


End file.
